The House of the Seven Gables (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

The Pyncheon family is a New England dynasty with a dark secret—their house, with seven gables, was built on land wrongly taken from its prior owner, who was executed after false accusations of witchcraft. That was generations ago, but perhaps the dead man did indeed have magical powers, for a curse seems to pervade the family through the ages, bestowing both foul natures and tragedy alike on the descendants. The current occupant, though—the maid Hepzibah Pyncheon—doesn't fit the family mold. Nor does her neice, Phoebe, as she comes to live there one season. These two eke out a meager existence as some others in the family thrive. But change may be in the air . . . ancient wrongs may be righted . . . and only love can be responsible.

Hawthorne tells us the point of his tale in the preface:

the wrong-doing of one generation lives into the successive ones, and, divesting itself of every temporary advantage, becomes a pure and uncontrollable mischief

And repeats it on the second page of the story:

the act of the passing generation is the germ which may and must produce good or evil fruit, in a far distant time; that, together with the seed of the merely temporary crop, which mortals term expediency, they inevitably sow the acorns of a more enduring growth, which may darkly overshadow their posterity.

He wrestles with the responsibility of subsequent generations:

whether each inheritor of the property—conscious of wrong, and failing to rectify it—did not commit anew the great guilt of his ancestor, and incur all its original responsibilities.

But (in my mind) doesn't fully explore the concepts or the solutions.

He acknowledges that the past's wrongs, even once realized, may not produce notable change. Regarding the witch trial hysteria, 

[We] made such laudable efforts to weaken the great Enemy of souls, by sending a multitude of his adherents up the rocky pathway of Gallows-Hill. Since those days, no doubt, it had grown to be suspected, that, in consequence of an unfortunate overdoing of a work praisworthy in itself, the proceedings against the witches had proved far less acceptable to the Beneficent Father, than to that very Arch-Enemy, whom they were intended to distress and utterly overwhelm. It is not the less certain, however, that awe and terror brooded over the memories of those who died for this horrible crime of witchcraft.

That less sentence is key—the public still looked with disdain and distrust upon those accused of witchcraft (and their descendants) . . . even as they acknowledged they were often wrong in the accusations. They acknowledged the error of their fathers but allowed the biases to continue. This is a powerful indictment of several dark parts in American history; may we learn from it and build a better future.

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This novel is a tough read. Hawthorne, like Dickens, is eloquent and verbose. Long sentences were (at times) beautiful to behold but could be laborious. Akin to the novelists of his day, there is key background information that is implied but withheld until the final chapters, giving an air of suspense and confusion to what we witness. Things move along slowly at first—too slowly—but the action  speeds up a good deal—too much so—at the end. Ultimately, the message is good but wrapped in an unwieldy package.

Rating: C+